


let it go

by orphan_account



Category: Harvest Moon: The Tale of Two Towns
Genre: Angst, Gen, Separations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-01
Updated: 2019-01-01
Packaged: 2019-10-02 10:58:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17262998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Messy vent I guess





	let it go

**Author's Note:**

> based on my experience playing ttot when i accidently trapped myself in a loveless marriage with a child i didnt care about whoops  
> the original version was a lot more angry and unemotional on lillian's (renamed phoebe because i know lillians in real life and thats weird) part so i tried to make it better but idk  
> i desperately wanted to get a divorce or something but i couldnt because of how the game works  
> and i couldn't marry a woman so :/

“Ash, Ash”

 

Ash was shaken awake by his wife.

“What’s wrong, what is it?” he said. His voice was garbled from being half-asleep.

He forced his head upright to look at her with bleary eyes and saw that she looked… sad.

 

“We need to talk,” she whispered.

 

“Why can’t we do this in the morning?” 

 

She glanced around anxiously.

 

“Bianca can’t hear, so it has to be now. Anyway, it’s four a.m. It’s practically morning already, just a little early,” she went and sat at the kitchen table in the room’s center. She looked at him urgently and patted the chair next to her. 

He fumbled over and sat down, searching his mind for what this could be about.

 

“Do you love Bianca?” she asked.

 

He jolted awake at the strange question. Bianca, their one year old daughter, was sleeping right in the center of the master bed.

“Of course,” he said, feeling his heart swell as he looked at her, “I love her more than anything.”

Now that he was a little more awake, he saw that his wife was wearing the same blue and white dress she had worn on their wedding day, and a thick coat. A few bags and boxes were scattered around.

 

“Good.” she seemed relieved, but her face changed back into worry and she leaned forward across the table, her eyes piercing his. “You are certain? Even with all the difficulties that come with being a parent?”

 

“Being a parent is hard sometimes but I love it and I love Bianca. What is this about? What’s going on?” he pushed.

 

She didn’t answer him. She simply averted her eyes and nodded.

“Good. I feel… I just…” she ran her hands through her dusty brown hair over and over, a nervous tic.

 

Ash grabbed her hand from across the table and smiled reassuringly. 

“Honey, please, you can tell me what’s-” he stopped.

Her face was filled with fear and confusion. She swallowed thickly and gently tugged her hand away. He could feel it shaking as it left his.

 

“...Phoebe?”

She ran her hands through her hair once or twice, then left them in her lap. She sighed for a long moment.

 

“Ash… I’m leaving.”

 

The room went cold.

 

“What?!”

 

She hushed him and pointed at the bed. Right.

 

“What- why, just- what?” he was quiet now but becoming frantic.

 

“I don’t love you,” she whispered. “I don’t even know if I like you, anymore.”

She laughed bitterly, and under her breath. Her eyes were wet and her face incredibly pale.

He was crying. He could feel the tears run down his face.

 

“I wish I hadn’t done this to you.” Her eyes were elsewhere, focused on the window beside the front door. 

 

“Leave me?” his voice cracked.

 

“No, I-” she rubbed her face with the palm of her hand. “I shouldn’t have married you at all.”

 

“Then why did you?” he was standing, arms braced against the table.

 

She was facing him, but her eyes were clearly pointed at Bianca behind him. She spoke, in a quiet, careful tone. Each word held cold emphasis.

 

“I had to get married. It was the natural order. People were… were talking, and I couldn’t… lose my reputation, and everything I’d worked, so, so hard for. We were friends, and I liked you well enough, so I… started courting you. I did what was expected of me.”

 

His mouth opened, but no sound came out. Any noise he made threatened to become a scream.

 

A pause.

 

“I’m sorry,” she said.

 

“Sorry?” he asked in a hoarse whisper. “How could you do this to Bianca? Reputation, hell, Phoebe, marrying me on a whim, for what?! How could you do this to me?!”

 

The bed creaked. They both turned towards the bed at once. Their faces were pale, gaunt. Fear in equal amounts filled their faces. Bianca rolled over, and then went still. They both sighed in relief.

 

Finally, she looked him in the eye. “I’m taking some of the livestock, and some of my things, of course. I’m leaving you the house and everything else, as much as I-”

 

“How can you talk like this? How can you be so…” he spoke quickly and harshly.

 

She sighed, and stood up. Her hands were shaking. Her face was an unreadable blend of feeling, anger, fear, exhaustion and sadness, all piled up on eachother.

 

“It has to be like this. For the last few months, every night I’ve ridden Darling up the mountain and stood at the precipice. When I close my eyes, I can feel myself hurtling off the side, until my neck snaps against the impact. I don’t want to die,” she said. Her lip was quivering.

 

He stood back a little, shocked.

 

“I don’t want to leave my house behind, that I built with my own money and resources, every plank of wood my own, and the crops, livestock I can’t take, and my hives for that matter…” she stared into the distance, counting on her fingers as she trailed off. She shook her head and returned to her train of thought.

 

“I’m going to move over to the other village, and wait until I can figure out a good place to go. I have friends there, but I can’t stay forever. It’s too close, and there isn’t enough room for livestock. The villages are so much closer now, I can’t live with the resentment of Bluebell. I’m still a sort of outsider, here. Their loyalty lies with you. It’s ironic. If I worried about my reputation before, then now…” she shakes her head. She’s starting to tear up. “Even if you tried to defend me, it wouldn’t work. I’ve worked so very, very hard for this town, i’ve lived here for the past eight years, but…”

 

Despite himself, Ash desperately wanted to hold her trembling shoulders, and tell her it would all be ok.

 

“There’s no guarantee the other village will help me, or that things will work out. It won’t be easy to escape the wrath of Bluebell,” she rubbed her eyes. The last word echoed in a way that made the whole sentence seem almost like a joke. Almost.

 

“So I’m moving. I’ll miss it here, after all this work to start up a new life. And Bianca,” she smiled at that. 

“I’ll send letters. I don’t want her to miss me. Don’t tell her why I left, please. Maybe don’t even tell her anything. I don’t want to hurt her, like that, but I’ll keep in contact with you, so if she wants to see me twenty years down the road, you’ll know where to send her. I trust you.” Now they were both crying, like a couple of idiots. 

“I’m sorry,” she said. She took two timid steps forward and held his shoulders in her hands. 

“I’m so, so sorry.” she pressed a kiss onto the top of his head. He sobbed against her as she hugged him.

“I really am an idiot,” she whispered as they seperated. Her face was red and tear-soaked.

“Why-,” he swallowed. His mouth was dry and his throat ached. “Why didn’t you wait until you fell in love with someone? Why couldn’t you love with me?” he asked, voice flat.

 

She froze, and her face went white. She stared at him, and he could hear her choke on her words.

 

“I hoped you wouldn’t ask,” she said. He furrowed his brows. “I…” she looked at the window. The barest hints of daylight were showing outside as infinite stars melted into a lightening sky. “I should start packing up.”

 

When she had grabbed all her things, she went outside and into the barn. For a moment Ash sat on the ground. He didn’t remember his knees collapsing beneath him and his impact with the floor. He felt hazy, and cold where her hands had left him. When his breath came back to him, he stood and opened the door. The cold air hit his wet face.

 

Phoebe was tying up animals in the covered wagon. She hung bags from hooks on the walls, and tied them tight so the animals wouldn’t nose through them. Two alpacas, three cows, and a gaggle of chickens. She lifted big, sturdy boxes into the wagon, kicking up clouds of dust as she pushed and dropped them in with a thud. The chickens clucked at her expectantly, still sleepy in the early morning. Her silhouette stepped back to look at the wagon, then began to load animals in. He couldn’t see her expression when she turned back to look at him. It was ill-defined in the darkness. He heard her grunt as she jumped out of the wagon a final time, and walked up to him. 

 

“You have everything you need?” he asked. She’d finished packing so quickly, he was worried.

 

“Yeah. I’ve been… getting ready for a while,” she said.

 

“This is it?”

 

She didn’t answer him. Her eyebrows furrowed and then shot back up. She was focused on something behind him.

 

“Hey, baby,” she said softly.

 

Ash turned around. Bianca was sitting up in bed, rubbing her eyes. 

“Mama?” she asked tentatively.

 

Phoebe hesitated, and shuddered, scared and guilty, almost petrified, then stepped through the doorway. Her shoulders untensed after she had crossed the threshold into the room. Bianca held up her arms to be picked up, and Phoebe obliged. She cradled her in her arms and hummed something. Her expression softened.

Bianca’s eyes fluttered closed, and Phoebe watched her. She smiled but it didn’t reach her eyes. She looked around the room, her face warring between exhaustion and anger. Bianca made a complaining noise, probably wanting the lullaby to continue. Phoebe didn’t look at her, and instead walked to Ash, and placed Bianca in his arms unceremoniously. 

 

“Better to rip the band-aid off,” she said. She turned away, heading decisively toward the wagon.

 

Ash could feel his heart breaking, his body frozen in between moments where Phoebe would be there, and where she would be gone.

 

“Wait!” he called, despite himself, arm flung out toward her. Phoebe twisted around. Again, he couldn’t see her face in the dark, but he persisted. “You didn’t tell me why,” he said. He hadn’t meant for it to sound as pathetic and whining as it did.

 

Phoebe looked at him, then the baby, then him again.

 

“I’m not like you,” she said, quietly. “I’m not like anybody here.”

 

“Wha-”

 

And she was gone. She hopped onto the horse, and urged it forward.

 

“C’mon, girl,” she said, under her breath.

 

The wagon’s shape receded. Bianca watched it go with mute disinterest.


End file.
